A COMING CRISIS | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Jun 25, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 26.

A COMING CRISIS.

"Into the New and the Unknown."

AMONG the veteran editors and writers of to-day is John Swinton, who has served as chief of staff on the New York Times, New York Sun, is author of several books, and general writer for newspapers and magazines. Some months ago he had an article in the New York Herald, from which we present the following liberal excerpts, as particularly applicable at this time, especially in the fulfillment of the "more sure word of prophecy." It may be well to say that the humble student of that Word need not be uncertain as regards the future. These things now passing are not "new" in principle, and God's Word has long foretold them, as it has what lies beyond. Mr. Swinton says:—

We may have stormy times in our country before the twentieth century has gone far. We may see some apocalyptic illustrations of the workings of that industrial revolution which is now transforming our body politic into something new and strange, and which is bringing about organic changes in our republic, our commonwealth, and our social system, by means both visible and invisible, through agencies containing the promise and potency of a kind of development not to be foreseen.

We may yet see that gigantic modern power called capital, and those immeasurable latter-day forces grouped under the name of labor, engaged in performances of large interest and concern to the American people. Already there are signs and omens not to be disregarded, and more of them are coming in sight all the time as we whirl along. There are other things than the great labor revolts of our time, so numerous, so disquieting, so continuous, and so portentous, which prompts me to write these words. Those of the readers of the Herald who can recall the years that immediately preceded the election of Mr. Lincoln, will be able here to make comparisons of a suggestive character. They do not need to be told in how far the passions, the contentions, and the menaces of that portentous period resemble those that have come into existence of late years through the discord between the great wielders of capital and the millions of workers for wages, and through the ceaseless strain of both parties in the strenuous struggle. As forty years ago each party declared that it would never submit or yield, so now again the defiant words are heard in the contentious camp. . . . Let warning be taken while yet it may. And let it be said of the present writer in days to come, that he was an alarmist at the opening of the twentieth century, as was another man in the year 1859, when he wrote "The Impending Crisis," a crisis for slavery which came so unexpectedly in less than two years after Mr. Helper's book was printed.

The magnitude of the labor revolts that have broken out within a year has—

Never Been Paralleled

in any other time or country. I need not speak of those of the many building trades, the coal-miners, the machinists, the San Francisco unions, the factory hands, the clothiers, the steel workers, or a hundred lesser industries. By the estimate of an expert, who had kept count as nearly as possible, it would seem that not far from a million wage-workers have gone on strike during the last twelve months; and this, of course, signifies that a much greater number of other people have been disturbed or have suffered in consequence. No wonder that a foreign writer, in reviewing the situation, gives his essay such a headline as "The Industrial Anarchy in the United States."

The Importance, the Gravity,

the passionateness, and the significance of some of the strikes have been very great. They have affected business, trade, Wall Street, the markets, politics, and the daily life and welfare of large masses of our people. They have brought heavy losses to many of the parties concerned in them; they have rent many schemes and crippled many enterprises; they have caused bankruptcies; they have been the source of woes unnumbered; they have wrecked lives and broken hearts; have sent men and women to the poor-house, the mad-house, and the graveyard. Notwithstanding the magnitude and the multitude of the convulsing strikes, it is altogether likely that they will become yet greater, more numerous, and more convulsing as the industrial and financial powers advance in their development. The forces now in operation by which they are promoted are very sure to increase in strength and momentum as time goes on. A generation ago a few hundred men used to take part in a strike; some time afterward thousands of men would go out on a strike; now hundreds of thousands of men join a strike, and, moreover, a score of different trades in as many States sometimes back up one trade during a strike, while the great body of organized workers sympathize with the strikers, even if they do not enter into a sympathetic strike. . . .

The domination of unlicensed capitalism and the existence of labor unionism are at stake in these contests. It is to be remarked here that the many and great strikes of recent times have been almost wholly free from violence or riotous conduct on the part of the workmen, tho the militia have sometimes been called out in the name of the law, as at Buffalo and Troy. The strikes may be properly characterized as peaceful revolts. . . . Were this otherwise, the formidable labor revolts of our day would be a terror indeed—momentous project of men arming.

Armed Hosts Forming.

A short time ago, however, when the great strike of the steel-workers got under headway, the Herald startled the country by printing a despatch from West Virginia, that the first military company ever formed by a labor union had been organized at Wheeling by Crescent Lodge, Amalgamated Association. The interest in the original report, however, has not been diminished; for it is now known that the Crescent Lodge at Wheeling is not the only one that has taken the subject under consideration, and that other labor organizations in different parts of the country have done likewise. They claim that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the Constitution, and that, as the workingmen are the bone and sinew of the country, the constitutional right can not be denied them. . . .

At this point it may be mentioned that a good number of trade-unions, especially of those in the Western States, have recently prohibited their members from joining the regular State militia, under pain of expulsion, and the reason given for this action is that the State troops are used in the interest of capitalism against the labor element, and in the suppression of justifiable strikes. It is a fact, nevertheless, that, at least in Pennsylvania and Illinois, the State militia have, on several occasions, suffered from the charge of being unduly sympathetic with labor in the case of a strike.

Before closing my remarks, I would make note of one thing that undoubtedly has an influence in disturbing the mind of the commonality in these times. I refer to the oft-repeated public reports of—

The Stupendous Incomes

of certain great trusts, flamboyant millionaires, banking institutions, big corporations, and stock speculators. . . . We had in August [1901] such figures of the dividends of the Standard Oil Company, and the revenues of the billion-dollar steel trust, and the earnings of at least one of our banks, and the incomes of some of our heavy investors or operators, as might well make humanity stagger. . . . Never before, in all time, did the golden stream, the millions and the billions, roll so rapidly as now, rolling into treasuries so vast that they could not be compassed in a day's march by all the labor-union in America. . . .

The news of the latest dividend of the billion-dollar trust was printed simultaneously with other news of strikes, more strikes, and yet other strikes. Can any one be surprised that even thoughtless people are led to indulge in thinking? I am asked to make a guess as to the outcome of all these big, passionate, and ominous labor revolts, which are constantly growing in magnitude, momentum, and force. I can't do it. I can not see how they are to be prevented or put down without a change of circumstances as great as to be unthinkable, or without a change in bodies of men who are beyond reason, or without some kind of change in the relation between capital and labor. It is possible . . . that it will work out all right in the end, regardless of the lesser movements of either of the belligerents. I can't tell, nor can Mr. Morgan. It would certainly be bad business to use the regular army or the State militia against masses of men striking for life. It would certainly be poor policy to carry government by injunction further than it can be enforced. It is surely folly to abuse and threaten organized capital at periods of storm and stress consequent upon an industrial and social transformation, when our country is passing out of the old into the new and the unknown.